


The Fall

by darkhavens



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dark Love, Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:33:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5622421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkhavens/pseuds/darkhavens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What goes through Will's mind as they're falling?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fall

Will held tight to Hannibal as they fell, eyes shut fast, his face buried in the blood-sodden cashmere knitwear stretched taut across Hannibal’s collarbone.

He wasn’t expecting to be held back just as tightly, if not moreso. He was expecting to be pushed away - he was _always_ the one being pushed away - but Hannibal was wrapped around him so completely he could hardly breathe.

Hannibal’s lips - the tip of his tongue - burned an indelible brand into the bloodied skin at Will’s temple. Their legs tangled intimately, right thighs tucked up, each into the other’s groin. They were both hard as iron.

And still Will kept waiting to be thrown aside for what he’d done. He’d doomed them both, had seen in that final moment no other option, but Hannibal was seemingly content to fall, content with Will in his arms, content in the knowledge that they’d finally killed together, as he’d always wanted. They’d slain the Great Red Dragon, been baptized in his blood, reborn, and now…

With sickening clarity, Will suddenly, finally, recognized that Hannibal would never let go; _had_ never let go, not even once in all the years that had led inexorably up to this moment. Even his time in Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane had been because Hannibal wouldn’t - couldn’t - _kill_ Will, not even to save himself.

Will’s death would have been the simplest solution, Hannibal’s easiest way out, but instead he’d been manoeuvred, finessed, into that cell so that Hannibal didn’t have to sacrifice the one person who could actually _see_ all of him, and understand. The one person he could love, and who could, maybe, one day learn to love him back.

No child’s romanticized dream of candy heart valentine love, this. Theirs was a love that spoke of forever through gritted teeth and _meant_ it. Vows written in blood and scar tissue, carved into their skin with artful precision. ‘Til death do us part’ not even an option for them because, live or die, they’d be together in all things. And they _were_ dying, dying in meters per second squared, and it was taking _forever_.

Will wondered how close they were to the rocks at the base of the bluff. Had he sentenced them to be dashed to pieces, or would they sink into the roiling Atlantic and drown, or die by inches as hypothermia set in? The urge to look, to snatch just one terrified glance over Hannibal’s shoulder, was almost irresistible.

He must have telegraphed his intention to move somehow. The hand Hannibal had pressed between his shoulder blades slid up to cradle his skull, keeping his face buried in Hannibal’s neck as Hannibal curled around him even tighter, till his lips rested on the curve of Will’s ear.

“Hold fast, Will. I have you now.”

And then Hannibal was twisting them both as the wind pushed and gravity pulled, and somehow they were hitting the water at the perfect angle, impossible speed be damned.

And even as they arrowed down into dark, turbulent waters, Will held fast, and trusted, because Hannibal had him now. Hannibal would always have him.

**Author's Note:**

> I believe they live to kill another day, of course. Chiyoh was probably waiting out there on a boat, ready to fish them out, because Hannibal _always_ has a backup plan.
> 
> And the table was set for three, can't forget that.


End file.
